The 16 metre-long missile soared into the sky behind a thick column of orange and white smoke and, within seconds, became invisible to the naked eye, an eyewitness said.

Agni-3 missile is fitted with on-board computer for its guidance system. A battery of sophisticated radars, electro -optic tracking systems, telemetric data centres in the mainland apart from two naval war ships anchored near the impact point, were engaged to monitor the entire trajectory in today's test launch.

The Agni-3 missile was first test-fired on July 9, 2006 but it failed to meet its mission objectives due to booster flex nozzle controller failure.

During the second test conducted on April 12, 2007, the entire flight path validated all mission objectives, Defence Sources said.

Agni-3 is the country's first solid fuel missile that is compact and small enough for easy mobility and can be easily packaged for deployment on a variety of surface and sub-surface platform thus extending its Surface to Surface capabilities

This comes at a time when India’s navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, has beenvoicing concern over an increase in submarine presence, including nuclear submarines carrying long-range missiles, in neighbouring waters after satellite imagery revealed a new Chinese base south of Hong Kong....

In the 1980s, India had leased a Russian nuclear submarine, the INS Chakra, that was subsequently returned, and may have negotiated the lease of two more Akula-class nuclear submarines for its fleet from the middle of this year.

The next few months are sure to be tense especially considering that the media keeps projecting AGNI III as a " ballistic missile which can hit targets in BEIJING and SHANGHAI." eg.